Monday, August 29, 2011

Fall is definitely in the air here in Michigan. The days are beautiful, at least lately, and it's so cool at night that you sleep like a baby. I hear that it's going to come to an end by the weekend and heat up again, but you know that Fall is coming soon. My favorite time of the year - football games, the smell of fires in the air AND the fact that I can go back to my regular scheduled programming - sewing, reading blogs, getting things done. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE, LOVE summer, but I like each season for various reasons. Summer for the beautiful weather and being able to be outside more, my kids being home and things like that. But Fall, Winter and Summer are when I get the fun things done. I don't get much sewing and stitching done in the summer, so I'm looking forward to getting back to everything now that the kids are back in school and I have a little more time to myself.

Stitching wise I managed not to jump ship on Ann Hall and got, what I think, is a fair amount done on her considering everything:

Not bad, but not great either. Love the cherub, and he's going to have a little belly button when I manage to get it in. I think he's sweet!

Sewing wise - there has been nothing - absolutely nothing in that department and I so long to get down there and work on some quilts. I hoped to do some today because today was the first day I've had time to myself in what seems like forever. Everyone is off and while I wanted to sew, I decided to tackle a job on the very long To Do List and finally got around to hanging all my A & E samplers. Well, not all of them - I still have a couple to be framed, but what's framed to date. This is still a work in progress as there is a lot of wall space, but I have a lot of A&E's still lurking in the stash basket. The pictures aren't the greatest as I'm trying to shoot up and down stairs, and the lighting isn't the best because the ceiling is very high in this area, but here you go (the pictures are clickable so that you can see them better):

Looking up the stairs we have the infamous Ann Medd, Adam Alone, Sarah Esh, Adam and Eve by The City Stitcher and Mary Corey and there's still room for a few more.

Here's a view of the one wall from the bottom of the stairs. Looks like I better keep stitching those A&E's - there's a lot of space left.

And one from the top!

So that is the extent of what I've gotten done the past couple weeks in the world of stitching. I'm anxiously awaiting the reaction from DH when he sees all those samplers on the wall. He'll probably go nuts - you know, he's the one that's anal about putting holes in the wall. Oh well, he'll get over it! LOL

While my sister was here last month, I managed to add a couple flower frogs to my collection and here's one of them:

Isn't it sweet? I had seen one of these going on Ebay a while ago for a ridiculous amount of money (well, at least more than I would pay). While we were out on our annual antique rides, I found this hidden in the back of a low shelf and knew that it had to come home with me. It needs a little cleaning up but I think it's so different.

Other than that the only other thing that's been going on is that we got Nick up to college and from all reports he's loving it.

Looks like pretty close quarters to me. I don't know how three boys are going to survive in this room (they overbooked the room and eventually one will be moved, but until that time, I think it's going to be real close). Anyway, I think he's having fun, but I don't think that he's getting too much sleep. One night he was up at 4:00 a.m. doing wash.

Before we left for the ride up to the campus, he presented me with these, thanking me for getting him to this place in his life. I don't think I had all that much to do with it (well, maybe a little) - it was his hard work that paid off:

And that's about it for me for now. Well, there's more but I'll save that for next time. Maybe I can get myself to start posting every week again! Hopefully, I'll really have things back to normal again in the next couple of days and can get some more stitching and quilting done! Hope everyone has a great week, and make it a stitchy one!

Sunday, August 14, 2011

Yes, yes, I know - it's been another month since I posted. Where has the time gone? Well, I am not sure where it's gone, but it blew by in a nanosecond!! It's been like a real whirlwind around here. DD's theater performances, my sister's visit and we're now on the home stretch in getting DS out the door for college next week. So all things crafty have been put on the back burner to simmer. But I do have a finish!! Woo Hoo!

Sun and Moon

The Scarlett Letter

DMC threads and 35 ct. Edinborough PTP Legacy Linen

Now seriously, this poor piece should have been finished a month ago. There's just not that much to it. But, besides the time constraints lately, that border was a nightmare (many frogging issues going on with that border), and as I mentioned in my last post, if I put arrows on this thing to point out mistakes, you wouldn't be able to see the poor design. But I'm happy with it, so to me it's a wrap - mistakes and all!!!

In my delirium of finishing something, instead of going back to something that I had been working on before (like Mary Allen - sorry Loraine!!), I started a new Adam and Eve piece since I just love those two people in Eden, so I started Ann Hall (pix flinched borrowed from the SL site):

And this is how much I've accomplished so far:

I'm loving this so far, but wonder how long it's going to take me to get burnt out on this border. We all know that I am "She Who Hates Borders", but so far it's been fun!

Quilting/Sewing has just about come to a dead standstill. I did manage to get one block done for my Month 3 of the CWC quilt (and I'm at least three or four months behind). This month I have to make four blocks (with a lot of those dreaded HSTs). Block 1:

Block 2 in pieces because I made a mistake and the block came out too small. Easily remedied, but still lying on the cutting table in pieces after pulling it apart:

Blocks 3 & 4 still in pieces. What can I say?

I also started a fun project - or what I thought would be fun, but I ran into some problems with the pattern (I hate when that happens) and only have it partially put together after thumping my head against the table because I thought it was I making the mistakes, not the pattern's fault:

What is this you wonder? Well, I'm not saying right now, but it's the beginning of a couple things - now collecting dust on the crafting table. Sigh - how I would love some sewing time!!! So that's it for craft things for me in the past month. Pretty pathetic I know. But I'm hoping that in another couple of weeks I can get back to sewing. I really miss it.

My sister came in for a week or so and we did our normal antique/barn sale thing. I really didn't find all that much, but something fun that did happen before she came had to do with those machines I love - sewing machines. First a couple that I found recently, but not while my sister was here:

It's a Lindstrom Little Miss Sewing Machine. It was made in the 30's and the little girl is suppose to be Shirley Temple. I was so excited to find it. It still works and is in pretty good shape. You'll see on the hand wheel that someone wrote their name on it. I can only make out the first name - Winoma. Makes you wonder about the little girl that used this machine. Then a couple weeks later, I found this tiny machine:

The hand wheel actually turns and the needle still goes up and down. And better yet - it was only $1.00.

But the biggest and most exciting purchase was this:

A vintage 1951 Singer 301 machine! Woo Hoo. I've wanted one for a long time. There is a wonderful story concerning this machine. It involves a little bird - a little Bluebird to be exact, and a friend. And luck was on my side in looking for things at just the right time. I'll share that story the next time because the story still isn't over, but I was just overjoyed at my new acquisition!! I've been so busy that I've barely gotten time to test it out (just a test run on my kitchen island of all places), but a quick run of it sounded so nice - it purred like a kitten. And she came with a name - Samantha. Hopefully it will be in its new home by my next post.

Besides my sister's visit (and I'll show you my meager antique haul next time) and DD's theater performances, my son turned 18 and leaves next week for college. To combine the two events, we celebrated both occasions with a cake. I'd like to take credit for the decorating of the cake, but I haven't decorated a cake since my kids were young. I left it up to the bakery:

Go Nick and Go MSU! Actually, I was really hoping for a cake in Maize and Blue (U of M's colors), but he's going to college and that's all that matters. Speaking of which, he still hasn't heard from U of M, so maybe there's hope in the future. I told his sister that she really needed to give him a kiss for his birthday, and she did - notice the hand between her and her brother's cheek - so she doesn't get cooties or something:

And then her falling over after doing it laughing:

Kids - what are you going to do with them? Anyway, I know that she's going to miss him a lot, although she did confide in me that she was going to turn his bedroom into her shoe closet! LOL

Well, that's it for me! Sorry that I haven't been leaving comments on everyone's blogs. I have managed to get in and lurk around, but honestly no time to comment. I did figure out what my blogging problems were - using another search engine. Seems Safari decided that it didn't like blogs any longer, so I switched to Google Chrome and it works like a charm! Anyway, after I get my DS off to college, things will settle down around here. It's a lot of work getting these kids off to college, and my dining room looks like a disaster area with all the boxes ready to go up to school. But he'll be gone in just 9 short days (sniff, sniff). I'm sad and he can't wait!!

One thing I did realize when I did have time to get into blogs, is that I'm coming up on three years of blogging! I'm having a hard time believing that! And now am over 600 followers!!! Wow, where did everyone come from? I can't wait to have some time to visit all your blogs and see what you are up to. So in light of 3 years of blogging and the new followers, I'll probably have a giveaway to thank all of you for the wonderful comments you have left and encouragement when I've needed uplifting. Maybe not quite on my blogoversary, but soon after.

Hope that you have a wonderful week, and thank you for all your comments even when I do fall off the face of the earth for a while. They do mean so much to me!!

About Me

My name is Debbie and I'm a stay at home mom with two very active children, a husband and a crazed Golden Doodle named Bailey. My passion is needlework of any kind, especially cross stitch. I was introduced to this over 30 years ago and have not stopped since. I also love to quilt, needlepoint and knit. I'm a passionate reader and Sudoku nut too!